In
this workshop, you will learn
how to
use the Sims Transmogrifier to make your paintings "backless"
so they can only be seen on a front view. I am assuming you have no prior
knowledge of using TMog. You can do
this in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, or I should imagine, even using Windows
Paint.

You can get the Transmogrifier from the link
on the previous page.

Many sites now offer
"backless" versions of their paintings, tapestries, and some even
offer bookcases in this way. This is great, as you don't need to see the
item from the back view, and you can put as many up as you like without
them interfering with your gameplay at different rotations. But I am sure
that you, like me, have items downloaded a while ago which are not invisible
from the back, and you don't tend to use them any more as they just get
in the way. This workshop is designed to help you re-use your long loved
(and maybe even long forgotten) objects by making them backless.

Because
I use Photoshop, those will be the screen shots & instructions I am
using, but I am sure that your prior knowledge of your favourite paint
package will suffice to be able to do these steps for yourself using the
equivalent commands in those tools.

Here's
a handy guide to some of the Photoshop tools. I am not being paid by them
to say this which is a great shame, but nevertheless I really can't recommend
the Peachpit press WOW! books highly enough. They may be a little more
pricey than most, but they take things step by step, are in full colour
AND come with a tutorial disk. One day I will upgrade both Photoshop book
and program to version 7, but as I have no real need to at the moment,
I am sticking with 5.5.

You should
also note that if you put your objects in a .FAR file, you cannot alter
them without taking them out of their .FAR file first. Also, if your objects
are "Read Only" you should make them readable first.

OK, one
more thing. Opening up the Transmogrifier will take a LONG time if, like
me, you have many objects. To make this process much quicker, I have given
some step-by-step instructions on my Housekeeping page, which I suggest
you read, and then create a new temporary folder to move out the objects
you want to amend.

Right,
I am assuming now that you have a "stuff to amend" folder with
all your paintings, tapestries etc in there. You should also make another
new folder (mine is called "sparestuff") as what we are going
to do will generate a number of files which we can safely delete once
we have finished the process. This is much easier done if they are all
together!

I am going
to demonstrate what to do by using one of my own paintings. I suggest
you do the same for the first time you attempt this, to make it easier
to follow exactly what I am doing here. I have enclosed the painting in
the BunnyWufflesTutorialKit and it's called mifpalmhouselargepainting1.iff
(pictured below) which you should now install in your new folder BEFORE
you open up the Transmogrifier.

Open
up TMog, which when ready should look something like this:

You will notice that
as you scroll down the object list on the left hand side, the description
in the white box will change. You may also notice that sometimes, the
four buttons may sometimes become "greyed out" and the script
above change. If all your objects are "Read Only", you will
find that happens. I am going to deal with editable objects only here
for the start. I will deal with "Read Only" ones in a later
workshop. You can tell which is which from the script on the top right
hand side of the TMog screen.

If
you don't know from the file name what the object looks like, press the
View Object... button on the bottom right hand corner.
You will get a picture of the entire object, which on this particular
file looks like this:

I apologise
for the poor quality of the picture, but I am trying to keep my bandwidth
down :o)

Move the
slider bars to view the object at the different zooms and rotations you
see in the game. You can also look at the individual tiles in the pick
list at the top of the page. Once you have finished looking, click OK.
You can see from the main TMog screen that this object is Editable, making
this a very simple process indeed. I
am now assuming you have found the object that you wish to alter, and
if so, press the Export Object File... button.

This will bring up
a new screen as below. Take a look at all the various options, most of which
are greyed out. Thankfully, we are not going to be using most of these for
this particular exercise! You need to make sure that the "Just Change
Colors" box is unchecked. This will "ungrey" all the other
options, but we can just leave those as they are.

If your
TMog screen looks like this, press OK. Make sure that you save this to
your sparestuff folder.

Press "save"
and all sorts of gobbledegook will pass before your eyes! Ignore this
- we are more interested in the message that "Transmogrifier
Successfully Finished Exporting!" and especially with the OK button which
you can click now.

We are now finished with TMog
for the moment, so you can minimise it as we are now ready to play in
Photoshop or your preferred paint package. :o)

In Photoshop, go to File, Open
and find the folder you made.

Open
up this folder, and you will find two subfolders inside:

These
two folders represent the two tiles this painting takes up in the game.
Open up the sprite 0200 folder.

Take
a look at both these images. These are called "Sprites" and
represent one square in the game. The one we are going to play with is
the one called Vegas-2-tile-1_large_back_p.bmp so you
can close the other one and ignore it :o)

Use the
eyedropper / colour sampler tool to select some of that
lovely yellow into your Foreground colour box. Now, select your Pencil
tool and choose a lovely big brush. Now colour in the back of the frame
so that it's all gone.

However
you select shades in whatever paint program you may be using, it is VITALLY
important that you use the same exact shade of yellow as the rest of the
picture. Any slight variation will not make the back invisible but even
worse, will actually give you a yellow back to your painting.

Once you
have finished colouring in, press Save and close the image. Now open up
the other folder - sprite0201. Select the image Vegas-2-tile-2_large_back_p.bmp
and colour in this one as well. Press Save and close the image.

Bring up
the TMog again, as we have now finished in Photoshop.

Press
the Import Object File... button, which will bring up a
confirmation screen like the one below:

It
should automatically select the correct .XML file to import, as it has
done here, so press "open" and once again all sorts of gobbledegook
will pass before your eyes!

Ignore this.....

.....because
we are more interested in the wonderfully mis-spelt message that "Transmogrifier
Successfulluy Finished Importing!" and especially with the OK button which
you can click now.

Press the View
Object... button on the bottom right hand corner. You will get
a picture of the entire object as before, only this time when you rotate
it with the slider bars, two of the views will now look like this:

Which is what we want, as this means the
object will not be visible from
the back. You can close TMog and Photoshop, and the next time you play
your game, take a look at your newly amended object!

If you are satisfied
with the result, you can safely delete both the file folder and the .xml
file from your main sparestuff folder - you won't need these to
enjoy the object in the game, and if you want to amend the object in any
other way, we can just make new ones as we did before.

Your sims will not
be bothered at the change, but I am sure that this will enhance your gameplay,
and also give you the confidence to try one of my tutorials for making
your OWN objects :oD